Winter Park Memorial Hospital officials had their dukes up, on the defensive.

On the line, a caller with an ominous question: “What are you doing at the hospital to my son?" Rather than a straight jab, the caller threw a curve: "My son came home from Project Search today and started telling me about the hospital, the people he had met, the work he was doing, patients he had helped and some funny stories about his co-workers."

The hospital had recently adopted Project Search to train high schoolers with developmental disabilities to compete for mainstream jobs.

Still anticipating a body blow, hospital officials pressed to learn what god-awful thing the boy had suffered at the hospitals hands.

"What you don't understand," the parent continued, is my son hasn't spoken in nine months. So I'd like to know what you are doing at the hospital? Please keep it up!"

For hospital CEO Ken Bradley, the denouement was a relief, then a revelation. For years, Katie Porta, CEO of Quest Inc., not only had urged him to embrace Project SEARCH, but also declared that eventually he would. And that it would work. Well.

Not only do more than half of program graduates hold jobs today with the hospital, but Bradley agrees they're "truly some of our best employees."

Not that Porta is surprised.

The developmentally disabled "have the same needs you and I have … People don't want to be treated down; they want to be treated up."

Too often, however, they find themselves shy a spokesperson to ensure they get that chance. Indeed, the suddenly loquacious Project SEARCH client is an apt metaphor for Porta's lifework with Quest, which serves the developmentally disabled in Greater Orlando and Tampa.

Whether whispering in CEOs' ears or upbraiding state lawmakers, Porta for 32 years has spoken for the literally and metaphorically mute. Her "tenacious" — state Sen. Andy Gardiner's word — advocacy for people often unseen to policymakers is why the Orlando Sentinel has named Porta the 2013 Central Floridian of the Year.

"She is an extraordinarily effective advocate because of her passion and her willingness to tell it like it is to those in power," says former state Rep. Dick Batchelor, who recalls Porta advocating "sometimes loudly."

Growth of a quest

Indeed, Porta, 67, (pronounced Poor-tay) has been the voice, but also the face — not only of Quest, but the larger quest in Florida to impart to people with extraordinary challenges life's ordinary things: housing, fair-paying jobs, respect.

"Katie has been an unrelenting leader … for Quest because of her philosophy that the disabled should live life as normally as you and I," says David A. Odahowski, president and CEO of Edyth Bush Charitable Foundation Inc.

Those who know her say any progress she's made owes to her "hearing disability."

"Katie does not hear the word 'no' — it's not in her lexicon," says Jack Levine, a longtime child advocate. "When someone tries to say it to her, she hears 'maybe,' which she strives to turn into a 'yes.'"

That passion for her chosen people has helped Porta spread the gospel of inclusion and grow what became Quest Inc. from an outfit with a dozen staffers to an advocacy giant with more than 600 employees that daily serves more than 1,100 people. Quest manages programs for autistic children, group homes for differently abled adults, vocational programs, and Camp Thunderbird in Apopka, a getaway for the disabled.

Programs that for families of the 166,000 or so Central Floridians living with disability are as much a godsend as the architect behind them.

Porta "has been totally devoted and passionate about the mentally and physically disabled, and has done everything in her power to advocate for that," says Norma Hannan, whose 34-year-old daughter, Kerri-Anne, resides in Quest housing.

It was on her parents' popcorn farm in Indiana where Mary Katherine Hartman arose early to bottle-feed baby calves that her sense of devotion blossomed. Often, she shadowed her mom, a nurse who conducted in-home hearing tests for people with disabilities in rural corners.

Because she hoped to make a difference, Porta, echoing her mother, earned a speech-and-hearing degree at Purdue University.

After several stints as a speech-and-hearing therapist — including a year in Japan — Porta took over an Army jobs program in Germany. There, she met Steve Porta, a motorcycle-riding helicopter pilot who eventually asked her to marry him.

In 1974, she took a job at Sunland Center in Tallahassee, a hospital for the mentally disabled. Her first day was a revelation. Beds were lined up. Patients were lifted onto a slab like bundles of dirty clothes and bathed in plain sight. Their names were scrawled on their gowns in black marker.

Her advocate's heart grew three sizes that day. Porta began agitating for a bill of rights for the developmentally disabled. Rights enshrined today in Florida — long after the Sunland chain became a notorious memory.

That activist spirit is why Terry Bangs knew Porta — at the time a program specialist with the state Department of Health & Rehabilitative Services — was the one to take over Life Concepts Inc., a nonprofit that operated group homes, sheltered apartments and vocational training for adults with developmental disabilities who'd previously lived in large state institutions.

"Katie personally drove to the state institutions to meet and learn about the individuals who were to be discharged into community settings," recalls Bangs, then vice president of Life Concepts. "She wanted to be sure that when they arrived in their new home that everything was well-suited and ready for them."

A Quest begins

The operation that Porta inherited — born in 1980 through a modest state grant — had profound disadvantages.

"We didn't have a van," Porta recalls. Worse, there was little money (a $130,000 operating budget in 1981). Or, a story to sell. Money and narrative worked in tandem, Porta realized. So, she polished their tale.

"You talk about someone's ability, and then you talk about what they can't do — but have the skill to do — because the environment is not right, so you have a story."

Still, the story needed to get out. Tallahassee became Porta's second home. Chitchat with lawmakers breeds rapport. And rapport breeds candor.

Says Porta: "I remember telling [former state Rep.] Bob Sindler, 'You're a bureaucrat.' He looked at me and said, 'How could you say that?' And I said, 'Well, you are.' He will always remember that. I didn't want him to forget me."

Yet, over the years, as Life Concepts merged with the Central Florida Sheltered Workshop and became Quest in 1994, fighting budget cuts became as reflexive for Porta as taking a breath.

Unanticipated state funding reductions in 2003 left hundreds of developmentally disabled adults at the brink of eviction, and cuts the next year sank Quest group homes in Tampa and Orlando into the red.

Funding's vagaries have, by necessity, sharpened Porta's knack for fundraising. Early on, she intentionally immersed herself in the business community, joining the boards of Orlando Utilities Commission and the area's United Way chapter, building relationships.

"I was attending a very important evening reception, and I was in conversation with a group of SunTrust executives," Odahowski recalls. "As Katie approached … almost in unison they all grabbed their wallets, waving them at Katie and asking how much it would cost them."

Chasing dollars, Porta says, is "just a part of our life, just part of the situation, and it's not getting any better. …You don't sell [a cause] because of begging. You sell it because it's a good investment."

That, in part, is what sold Winter Park Hospital's CEO Bradley on Project SEARCH — which Porta considers her greatest achievement.

"Katie is the smartest advocate I have ever met," Bradley says. "First she is a businesswoman. She seeks to understand your problems. She then looks for a mutual solution. You quickly find out about how her staff and programs can meet your needs. But you see these great people as people who can help you meet a business need — not as handicapped or disadvantaged."

The 'C'

Newton's first law states that a body in motion tends to stay in motion. Which is why Porta is galled illness made her break that particular law.

First, breast cancer 18 months ago. Then, the unimaginable: a second cancer had attacked her brain. Even as doctors battled the monster squatting in her head, breast cancer infested her bones.

With limited mobility and availability, Porta made a tough choice: She turned over Quest's reins in August.

"I was planning to work three or four more years, but the 'C' didn't think I should right now, maybe later," says Porta, now CEO emeritus. "It's not a fun time when you realize that."

"We've still got a lot of changes to make," she says. "But we can do it. If everyone works for the end result, you can make changes."

Already she's outlasted her doctor's expiration date.

"I have the belief that I can beat anything," she says. "I had the belief at that time I could beat it. Do I believe that now? I don't know. I live life. I have a lot of good friends, who come and bring me cookies."

Even as she fights, she's not contemplating her past.

"Legacy doesn't mean that much to me because that's having your name out there," Porta says. "That's not why you do things in life, to have your name in print."

Neither is Porta worried about the present — she believes the $30-million operation she's built will thrive under her successor, John R. Gill.

But, what of the future? Specifically, the future of those for whom so long she's stood as sheriff, protecting their God-given rights.

Because, for once, in her personal fight, there may be no "maybe."

Even if her voice is silenced, through her lifelong quest, her voice will echo. And Porta's people will be heard.

Education: Wolcottville High School in Indiana; Purdue University, bachelor's in speech and hearing; Rollins College Crummer School of Business-Management program; Harvard University J.F. Kennedy School of Government executive leadership program.

Background: Served as a speech-and-hearing therapist with public schools in Michigan and New York, in a Defense Department program in Japan, and at Sunland Center in Tallahassee. Directed an Army civilization transition program; was a program examiner and program specialist for the state Department of Health & Rehabilitative Services; and served as president/CEO of Quest Inc.

Personal: Divorced; daughter Stephanie, 34; son Michael, 32.

OrlandoSentinel.com/opinion: See videos of Porta and the runners-up; and a list of previous winners, with more stories and videos.

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